How To Succeed In Business
by LaurelNymph
Summary: When Your Boss Isn't Trying. Liese Beilschmidt got more than she bargained for when she started working as Feliciano Vargas' secretary. AU, fem!Ger/Ita, Pru/fem!Can, fem!Greece/Japan, fem!Spain/Romano, fem!Su/Fin, and fem!Russia/America.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N I wanted the full title to be "How To Succeed In Business When Your Boss Isn't Trying" but it was too long for fanfiction. This story is more of a side project since my other Gertalia story is a complete emofest, so I don't know how often I'll update. At any rate, enjoy and please review. :)**

**EDIT: Other minor pairings include: fem!Spain/S. Italy, fem!Greece/Japan, fem!Russia/America, and fem!Sweden/Finland.  
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All was quiet and peaceful in the apartment. A young, blonde woman was sleeping soundly when the clock rolled over from 5:59 to 6:00.

"_**WOLLT IHR DAS BETT IN FLAMMEN SEHEN!"**_

The young woman shot up in bed and toppled off, landing on the floor with a painful sounding noise, awoken suddenly by the loud music pouring from her alarm clock.

"_**WOLLT IHR IN HAUT UND HAAREN UNTERGEHEN!"**_

"Gilbert!" she growled, slamming her hand down onto her alarm clock and abruptly silencing Till Lindemann. She briefly entertained the idea of beating Gilbert over the head with her alarm clock until he promised to stop setting it to play Rammstein when she woke up, but then sighed in defeat, knowing that no matter how many times she told her irritating older brother to stop he wouldn't. Not to mention that meant going into his room and she really preferred to spare herself the sight. Instead of beating him as she would have liked, she decided to just get up and start brewing coffee. She'd need it that day.

While the coffee brewed, she quickly showered and dressed. She had an interview today, so she put on one of her dress suits, a nice dark green one with a black blouse underneath. Carefully, she combed her short, blonde hair back and pinned it in place. Finally, she picked up her grandfather's Iron Cross and slipped it on. Maybe it would bring her good luck and she would finally get hired and finally earn enough money to afford her own apartment. She was sick of having to share one with her brother.

Exiting her room, she smelled the familiar scent of pancakes. Well, that explained all the noise from last night.

"Good morning, Madeline," she greeted as she entered the kitchen.

"Good morning, Liese!" her brother's girlfriend of six months greeted her from the stove, where she was making pancakes. And only wearing one of Gilbert's over-sized T-shirts. "Umm," she blushed darkly. "Sorry about all of the noise last night."

"I'm used to it. Gilbert has always been very noisy," Liese reassured her as she poured herself coffee. Whether it was girls he'd brought home, videos games, or getting drunk with his perverted friends, she didn't think she'd gotten a moment of silence since… well, ever.

"Do you want some of these?" Madeline asked, gesturing toward a pile of finished pancakes. Liese's stomach growled and she gratefully accepted the food. She rather liked Madeline. It had certainly surprised her that her brother actually had a relationship, let alone one that had lasted this long. Madeline had a big sister personality and she and Liese got along well. Not to mention she was a wonderful cook. If there was one thing Liese liked about the nights she spent at their apartment, it was her cooking.

"Another interview today?" Madeline guessed.

"Yes," Liese answered, smearing butter on the pancakes. "And if I can get this one, I'll finally be able to move out." Madeline laughed.

"I feel your pain," she said sympathetically. "I can't wait to get away from Alfred, either. Protective brothers can be so irritating!"

That wasn't the reason Liese wanted to get away from Gilbert's apartment, but she decided that Madeline didn't need to know that. They continued to chat amiably until Gilbert shuffled into the kitchen, wearing only a pair of sweatpants.

"Morning, gorgeous," he greeted Madeline, kissing her deeply, ignoring her squawk of protest and Liese's embarrassed flush. "And Liese," he added as an afterthought. Liese ignored him, instead opting to go over her resume one last time to check for any possible typos. She really needed this job. She didn't think she could take much more of Gilbert's public displays of affection. Or hearing the couple through the walls at night.

"You're never going to get the job looking like _that_," Gilbert announced, dropping into the chair next to Liese's. She frowned.

"What do you mean?" There wasn't anything wrong with her outfit, was there? It was professional and practical, perfect for a secretary. Gilbert studied her for a moment.

"You don't look sexy enough! Cut thirty centimeters off of the bottom of your skirt and unbutton your shirt!" Gilbert ordered. "And wear a push-up bra!" Madeline smacked her spatula on Gilbert's head.

"What kind of big brother are you? You're not supposed to encourage her to look sexy!" she scolded. Gilbert only smirked.

"Mmm, I love it when you're feisty," he said seductively, causing Madeline to blush deeply and Liese to choke on her coffee. She quickly grabbed her briefcase and headed out the door thirty minutes early.

She was going to get this job if it _killed _her.

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Liese never thought she'd say it, but as she waited for her interview, she started thinking that maybe Gilbert had been right, just this once. All of the other girls waiting were dressed more like Gilbert had suggested. They all wore short skirts, lots of make up, had their shirts unbuttoned to reveal their breasts, and were whispering and pointing at her with their perfectly manicured nails. How could they even expect to type with nails that long? Liese shook her head, trying to distract herself from ridiculous thoughts like that. She just needed to focus on getting this job so she could finally, _finally _move out of Gilbert's apartment.

Finally, the door opened and the tittering from the other girls stopped. A rather short man entered the room and swept his gaze over them. He had messy, dark brown hair, one lock of hair flying away and sticking out the side of his head. Liese twitched as she fought the urge to smooth it down. The man narrowed his eyes as he appraised all of the girls before he finally stopped at her.

"You," he said, pointing at her. "Get over here."

Liese bristled slightly at the rude tone the man was using, but followed him anyway. She was taller than him, she noted, by at least eight centimeters, but with her heels on, it was more like twelve. They entered a small office and the man sat down behind a desk, on which a name plate sat, reading Romano Vargas. He gestured at the chair in front of the desk and she sat down, quickly retrieving her resume and placing it on the desk before him.

"I don't need that," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I'll be frank with you. We've had three secretaries quit just this month alone. I picked you because you actually look like you know what you're doing. You might last here."

"I'll do my best, Mr. Vargas," she replied awkwardly, unsure of how to respond. Did this mean she had gotten the job? Mr. Vargas looked a little unpleasant to work with, but it was a paying job and she desperately wanted to get away from her brother.

"That's what they all said," he muttered before standing up and opening the door to the waiting room again. "We don't need any of you," he called out rudely to the other girls, who all looked furiously at Liese, who guessed that she had indeed gotten the job. He looked over at her.

"Don't just sit there. Follow me."

Liese got up quickly and followed him past rows of cubicles and into a small, nondescript antechamber to an office. There was a desk, empty. Mr. Vargas pointed.

"Your desk," he said before he quickly showed her how to use the phone and the Mac sitting on the desk. Liese quickly committed all of the instructions to memory as Mr. Vargas rattled them off, as if he was used to giving these instructions often. Which he did, Liese remembered, seeing as they apparently went through secretaries pretty quickly. She was starting to wonder if there was something majorly wrong with Mr. Vargas. True, he was harsh, but was it really that bad to work with him?

"Okay," Mr. Vargas said after he had showed her the equipment on the desk. He grasped the handle of the door leading to the actual office and Liese assumed he was going to show her any special instructions about the things in his office. Oddly enough, he had a bit of a smile on his face, as if he was were about to watch something extremely entertaining. "And this is who you'll be working for." Liese barely had time to realize that Mr. Vargas apparently wasn't her new boss before the doors were pushed open. She gaped.

"Oi, Feli, this is your new secretary. I don't care what her name is," Mr. Vargas announced to the man who looked almost exactly like him, sitting at the huge mahogany desk and currently making a castle out of playing cards. Mr. Vargas smirked at Liese.

"Have fun."

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***The alarm clock is playing Rammstein's "Wollt ihr das Bett in Flammen sehen". **

***"Wollt ihr das bett in flammen sehen" means "Do you want to see the bed in flames".**

***"Wollt ihr in haut unde haaren untergehen" means "do you want to perish in skin and hair".**

***Till Lindemann is the lead singer of Rammstein.**

***Thirty centimeters is just short of twelve inches. Liese's skirts are all knee-length, by the way.**

***Eight centimeters is just a little over three inches. Twelve is almost five inches.**

**By the way, this story was inspired by a really good fanart I saw with fem!Germany. Here's the link (remove the spaces):**

**http : / / gypsypiratequeen . deviantart . com / favourites / # / d 2 krkil**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N I will be focusing on other couples and subplots as well as the main Gerita plot, so please bear with me on those sections. I also decided to add fem!Korea, but I don't think I'll ship her with anybody. **

**Thank you for all of the reviews and alerts. Please enjoy. :)**

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_Earlier that day, after breakfast_…

Gilbert smirked as the door shut behind Liese as she made her hasty retreat to go to her interview, once again fleeing from the sexual comments he so enjoyed making.

"Gilbert!" Maddie wailed, blushing a shade of red he'd never seen before. "Do you _have_ to say things like that in front of your sister?"

"Yes," he replied cheekily before sliding an arm around Maddie's waist and pulling her onto his lap. Making her flustered was one his favorite things to do. "Now that we're alone..." he murmured huskily in her ear before pressing his lips against her bare neck.

"Gil, stop! The pancakes'll burn!" she insisted, though he was certain her breathy laughter meant that she didn't really mind at all. Gilbert flicked off the burner on the stove before he turned back to face her, a strange look on his face.

"Uh, there's something I wanted to talk to you about," he mumbled, fixing his eyes on a point just past her shoulders.

"What?" Maddie asked, a cute look of confusion on her face.

"Well, Liese's been going to a lot of job interviews lately and she'll probably get hired pretty soon..."

"Yeah," Maddie agreed.

"And eventually she's gonna move out..."

"Yup."

"And I was just wondering if..." his voice trailed off. Maddie blinked in confusion at the uncharacteristic nervous look on her boyfriend's face.

"If what?" she prompted.

"If maybe after she moves out you'd wannamoveinwithme?" Gilbert said quickly, stumbling over the words as they came out. A rare flush had spread out over his face. He risked a look to gauge her reaction. There was surprise, certainly, but he couldn't quite place the other emotions.

"Y-y-you want to start living together?" Maddie stuttered in response, her face growing hot.

"It was just an idea," Gilbert muttered, embarrassed. "You don't have to."

"No, that's not it at all!" Maddie cried out, backpedaling frantically. "I'd love to; I just wasn't expecting you to ask me."

Gilbert smiled at her, an actual smile instead of his typical smirk before he leaned in and captured her lips in a tender kiss. She responded eagerly, kissing him feverishly until she felt Gilbert's hand creep under the shirt she'd borrowed from him. She broke off the kiss and pushed his hand away, shooting a concerned look at the stove clock.

"I can't!" she insisted somewhat frantically. "I need to get home soon or Alfred'll know I didn't come home last night."

Gilbert frowned.

"You _still_ haven't told him about me?" he asked. Maddie shook her head guiltily.

"I want to, but I already know that if I do tell him he'll flip out and do something stupid," she muttered. Alfred had a bad habit of chasing away all of her boyfriends by freaking out when he found out they existed. The only reason she'd gotten away with seeing Gilbert for so long without Alfred finding out was that he worked the graveyard shift at Walmart and came home at four in the morning and too tired to see if she was actually in their shared apartment. She usually managed to sneak in again before he woke up late in the morning. Gilbert pressed a quick kiss to Maddie's cheek.

"You should tell him."

"I know," Maddie sighed. "I'll tell him soon."

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_And back at the office..._

"Have fun." And with one final smirk, Romano Vargas left the room, slamming the door behind him, causing the castle Feliciano Vargas was making out of cards to collapse. A sad look overtook his cheerful face and he stared unhappily at the pile of cards, some of which had fluttered to the floor. Liese was frozen, speechless.

The office was a complete mess. Her hands twitched, longing to grab a mop and a trash bag and scour the office from top to bottom. There was a trashcan, overflowing with crumpled papers, candy wrappers, and old pizza boxes. There were several filing cabinets, all with their drawers hanging open, files shooting forth from where they had been shoved with no order whatsoever. Trash covered most of the surfaces. Papers, folders, empty drink cups, and plates of pasta crowded each other on the desk; the company-issued computer was the only thing visible on it. Liese had never wanted to clean so badly and she had lived her whole life with a messy older brother who was incapable of cleaning up after himself.

"Hello!" called out the man who was her new boss. He had lighter hair than Romano, although he, too, had a cowlick sticking out that Liese desperately wanted to smooth down. His eyes were a lighter shade of brown as well, and he had discarded his suit jacket, which were lying on the ground next to a perfectly good coat hook. "I'm Feliciano Vargas! What's your name?"

Liese shook herself out of the mess-induced stupor and walked (avoiding the piles of mess) to the desk, offering her hand.

"My name is Liese Beilschmidt. Starting today I'll be working as your secretary, Mr. Vargas."

Feliciano grabbed her hand with both of his, shaking it enthusiastically.

"It's great to meet you!" he said cheerfully. "But you can just call me Feli! Let's be friends!"

The statement made Liese uncomfortable. True, she hadn't had much work experience besides a few part time jobs in high school, but being friends with her boss seemed unprofessional, as did calling him by his first name. And yet Feliciano looked so happy meeting a new person so she pushed the concern aside to ask a more pressing question.

"How long has it been since the janitors cleaned in here?" Her guess was that they hadn't passed by in weeks. Feliciano looked around the room for a moment, frowning as he thought about the question.

"It was clean this morning," he said slowly, as if taking in the mess for the first time. Liese's brain short-circuited momentarily. He had made this mess in just a few short _hours_? Suddenly, she could understand why the other secretaries had left. It seemed that not only were they expected to carry out their secretarial duties, but those of a cleaning girl as well. If she didn't need this job so badly she might have just quit on the spot. Instead, she took a deep calming breath, counted to ten, and walked over to one of the filing cabinets.

"This room needs to be cleaned," she announced briskly, picking up the filing folders and starting to arrange them so they all faced the same direction and actually fit in the drawer. "Is there a number I can call for the janitorial team?"

"I don't know," Feliciano replied, getting up from his desk to pick up the playing cards scattered on the ground. "I've never called them before."

Liese bit back an irritated groan.

"I'll be right back," she announced before going back to her desk. There was a sheet of paper underneath the glass surface of the desk, containing a list of numbers. Quickly, she scanned it and found the number for the janitors and called. Unfortunately, they found the mess in Feliciano's office too daunting of a task to do more than once a day and instead offered to send up the cleaning supplies and let Liese handle it herself. Annoyed, she agreed to it anyway, because the mere thought of leaving his office in such a state was worse than having to spend hours cleaning it. After making the call and being assured that the supplies would be up in fifteen minutes, Liese returned to the office, where Feliciano was building another castle with his recovered playing cards.

"Mr. Vargas."

He shrieked in surprise, apparently not having had noticed that she had entered the room. The card castle collapsed once more, the cards fluttering away, coming to rest in various places in the room. He made a whining sound as the castle fell down, his eyes shining as if he were holding back tears, and Liese fought the urge to turn around and walk out of the office building and _never_ come back.

"I've called the janitors and they'll be sending up something to clean with," she announced instead before retreating and sitting at her desk. She quickly checked the computer and phone for any important messages, intending to do her job properly. There were no messages so she returned to the messy office where Feliciano had finished mourning his card castle and was now playing Solitaire on his computer. Liese started going through the filing cabinets, brainstorming ways to organize them. Eventually, the cleaning supplies made their way to the office and Liese spent several hours scouring the room, occasionally checking for any messages. Finally, the room was clean. Every surface had been scrubbed, the trash had all been thrown away, and the only thing left to do was arrange the files in the filing cabinet in some sort of working order.

She decided that filing everything properly could wait until after lunch.

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***Here's what I imagine fem!Canada would look like: **

**http :/yunichan .deviantart .com /art /APH -Gender -Bender -Canada -128130410?q =gallery%3Ayunichan +sort%3Atime&qo =122**

**By the way, this artist makes a lot of great Hetalia art, including more genderbent versions of the APH countries, so check out the rest of her gallery, too! **


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N I am SO SORRY about how long this took. I could explain why it did, but I doubt anyone cares. For future reference, I really appreciate constructive criticism so if you have a complaint about my writing or characterization, don't hesitate to tell me!**

**So please enjoy and review. :)**

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**Romano was extremely grateful when his lunch break rolled around. Most of the girls who had applied for the secretary job had complained for quite some time that they had never gotten a chance for an interview and that Romano had clearly played favorites when he had selected the girl he had, whatever her name was. A headache had quickly developed after hearing their shrill complaints. His misery had only increased as he had flipped through pages and pages of applications for the various other jobs in the building.

As soon as he was free to get lunch, Romano had shot out of the building and several blocks away he was so happy to get away from the stress of his crappy job. It had been a rather foolish thing to do in retrospect; he had ended up in a neighborhood he wasn't familiar with and he had no idea how to get back to the office. Eventually, he spotted a tiny Starbucks and headed in. It was relatively empty inside so he was able to walk up to the front counter where a tanned, brunette was absentmindedly snacking on a whole tomato.

He blinked.

He blinked again as he confirmed that yes, the woman was eating a tomato as a snack. A very delicious looking tomato. He may have felt some jealousy that the fruit in her hands was perfectly round and a beautiful shade of red, clearly at the peak of ripeness. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had barely eaten that day.

The woman noticed him and set down the tomato before she waved at him happily.

"Welcome to Starbucks!" she called cheerfully in an annoyingly loud voice that aggravated Romano's headache. "What would you like?"

"A caramel mocha frappuccino," he said curtly before noticing a sign that advertised that Starbucks was now serving hot sandwiches. "And a tomato sandwich."

"Ooh, that's a good one!" the woman said brightly as she headed off to make his drink and warm up his sandwich. "I love tomatoes! How about you?"

But she continued on before letting him respond and kept babbling on. Romano stopped listening to her chatter after it became clear that she was only talking about tomatoes and her job. Instead he nodded occasionally so that she wouldn't realize he was ignoring her completely and took his drink and sandwich before leaving the coffee store.

It wasn't until a block later that he took a sip from his coffee and realized that she had written her phone number along with her name, Anita Fernandez Carriedo, on the lid.

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Liese asked around the office and found out from a rather harried-looking Chinese man that there was a cafeteria on the seventh floor. She thanked the man, (who, oddly enough, kept throwing looks over his shoulder as if he were trying to avoid someone) and then went to go get lunch. After having spent the entire, exhausting morning on her feet cleaning and straightening up Feliciano's office, she was grateful to sit down for fifteen minutes and rest while she enjoyed her lunch. When she was finished with her food, it took all of her willpower to get up and head back to Mr. Vargas' office. But the promise of eventually having her own apartment where she could live calmly without the many interruptions and noises her brother and/or girlfriend managed to produce propelled her back into the office.

Thankfully, when she arrived back, Feliciano _hadn't_ managed to destroy the office while she had been gone. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen. Shrugging it off, Liese started removing file folders from his filing cabinets to be organized. As Liese immersed herself in filing things by department and date, she began to relax. She was alone, it was quiet, and she was getting the files in order. A smile adorned her face as she worked happily. Her alone time was her happy time. Slowly but surely, the piles of file folders waiting for a proper home inside of the filing cabinets started to dwindle.

Partway through her work, Feliciano returned, bearing a small ice chest.

"Hi, Liese!" he greeted cheerfully as he set the ice chest on his newly-cleaned desk. Internally, Liese bemoaned the loss of her peace and quiet now that her boss had returned.

"Good afternoon," she answered, then continued filing.

"Do you like gelato?" Feliciano suddenly asked.

The question was so random is threw Liese off for a few moments.

"I suppose so," she replied, still confused as to why her boss wanted to know about whether she liked gelato or not.

"Oh, good!" Feliciano exclaimed, opening the ice chest and fishing out several containers. "You looked like you were working really hard so I thought you needed a gelato break! But it's hard to find the real thing here so I had to go home and make it myself! Then I wasn't sure which flavor you'd like so I had to make a lot of different flavors and then I got hungry so I had to make myself some pasta and then–"

Feliciano continued to ramble about gelato and pasta while Liese stared at him, mouth gaping open unattractively. Ice cream? He'd disappeared and spent hours away from work because he felt like eating ice cream? Not for the first time that day, Liese started wondering just how Feliciano had managed to even get this job, let alone hold on to it. He was clearly irresponsible, lazy, and didn't seem to do any work whatsoever. It was a complete mystery that left Liese in a state of confusion only broken when Feliciano popped back up in front of her balancing half a dozen containers of gelato in his arms.

"Which one do you want?" he asked. "I have chocolate and coffee and pistachio and strawberry and–"

"I have a lot to do," Liese interrupted. "I don't have time to take a break."

Instantly, Feliciano's face fell. His shoulders sagged in disappointment and the look of teary-eyed misery on his face was enough to make her stomach twist in guilt.

"I-I guess I can take a short break," she backpedaled, trying to get the dejected look off of Feliciano's face. "I'll take the coffee-flavored one."

Once he'd realized that Liese had agreed to eat the gelato he'd made, Feliciano brightened visibly.

"Okay!"

He handed Liese the container of coffee gelato and skipped happily back to his desk. He dug spoons out of it and gave one to Liese before skipping back to his desk to sit down and eat his own treat, keeping an eye on her and waiting for her verdict. Leaning against the filing cabinet she had been working on, Liese took a bite of the gelato. A rich, coffee flavor graced her taste buds.

"How is it?" Feliciano asked excitedly, beaming up at her.

"It's very good," Liese answered, his infectious grin causing her to smile back.

"Yay!" Feliciano cheered before digging into his own (five) helpings of gelato. Liese ate hers much more slowly, savoring the taste before the plastic containers was regrettably empty and Liese had to return to work, though Feliciano fallen asleep on his desk. Unable to let the dirty containers lie around, Liese washed them and the spoons before packing them back neatly into the ice chest Feliciano had brought. Her boss was still asleep on his desk, breathing softly and occasionally making a strange "ve" sound when she placed the ice chest by his coat so that Feliciano would remember to take it back home. The errant curl sticking out at the side of his head was bobbing and swaying hypnotically in time with his breathing.

Liese mentally shook herself when she realized that she had wasted valuable time watching her boss sleep. She returned to the filing. About an hour later, Feliciano woke up and wandered closer to her.

"What are you doing?"

Hope blossomed in her chest that Feliciano seemed to be taking an interest in work. Liese quickly launched into an explanation of the filing system she had created but her hope that she could get her boss to actually do something productive slowly withered at the confused look on Feliciano's face as he tried in vain to order filing folders. At least there had been a spark of interest. Liese decided, as she watched Feliciano struggle to place the folders in the correct order, that her boss had potential, and that she was going to try her hardest to help realize it.

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***Gelato: The (extremely delicious) Italian equivalent of ice cream, but there are many subtle differences, such as a lower fat content and different methods of preparation and serving. **

***Gelato flavors: I used some of the most common ones but there are many different types, and many variations of flavors.**

**I struggled with the ending to this chapter, so I apologize in advance that it sucks.**


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